Welcome to our series You're Not Alone, in which Allen Sonter, for many years a missionary educator in the islands of the South Pacific, tell stories that help us to know that God is always watching over us wherever we are.
This episode is entitled the Key to Peace of Mind. Our first story today happened in 1952, so is an experience that has encouraged me over the years to know that I'm not alone and that God does help when I need him.
I was in my final year of teacher training and it was that time of the year when we students were assigned to schools to undertake several weeks of practical school experience. Excitement mounted as we crowded around the notice board where the list of schools where we were to teach was posted. Soon I was able to get close enough to read the small print.
Yes, there was my name, Alan Sonter, and the school was Hamilton. The Hamilton SDA school was in a suburb of Newcastle, New South Wales, and I had never been there before, so the experience promised to be an interesting one. I arrived at the school early on the first day to be met by the jovial headmaster, Oliver Ferris.
Oliver was an outgoing, friendly fellow who seemed to know everything about all his students. It wasn't a large school, only four teachers, if I remember correctly, but to a wide eyed youngster like me, it seemed to be really something great. And Oliver Ferris seemed a giant of a man.
We hit it off well right from the start and he assigned me to teach his own class. Of course, I taught only a few lessons at first and spent a good deal of time watching Oliver at work. I marveled at the way he seemed to have the knack of making things so simple for his students and he could say just the right thing to ensure that his charges paid attention.
They just ate out of his hand, as the saying goes. Well, the first week passed all too quickly and I was enjoying the experience immensely. I would usually stay at the school as late as possible, preparing lessons for the following day and would be the first at school in the morning.
So one day Oliver suggested that I keep his set of keys so that I could stay as late as I wished and come as early as I wished in the morning. I felt that Oliver was giving me quite a responsibility, as I would have to make sure that the school was left properly locked up each evening. I felt happy that he would trust me like that and accepted the offer gratefully.
I pocketed the bunch of keys with a determination that his trust in me would be well placed. And so things went well for several days. During the lunch breaks each day, I would go out into the playground and join the students at play.
At one end of the playground. There were a few pieces of gym equipment and I occasionally used this equipment with the older students. One day I was on the parallel bars, which were a bit old and shaky and attempted to do a handstand.
To my horror, the bars moved apart just enough to send me plummeting to the ground headfirst. It might well have been the last thing I ever did, but beneath the bars was a thick layer of sand which cushioned my fall so that I survived with nothing more than a very sore neck. Needless to say, I kept off those bars after that and nursed my neck during the afternoon.
After school was out for the day, I busied myself with preparations for the next day's classes while Oliver went to his office to attend to some of his many administrative duties. Before long, most of the students had left and the other teachers left in the late afternoon. Eventually, Oliver put his head through the door and said, well, I'm going now, Alan.
I'll see you in the morning. I acknowledged his greeting and went on with my work, hardly noticing the passing of time until I had to switch on the lights. All at once I realized how late it was.
So finished up what I was doing and packed up to leave. As I shut the classroom door, I reached into my right trouser pocket for the key to lock up and was shocked to find the bunch of keys wasn't there. With mounting anxiety, I searched through all my pockets until I was forced to the sickening conclusion that I had lost the headmaster's keys.
Here I was, all alone in the school with no one to turn to, and the keys had simply vanished. I couldn't go home and leave the school unlocked and it was rapidly becoming dark. What was I to do? Perhaps the worst thing about the situation was that I had no idea where the keys might have gone, and without them, I didn't know how I was going to face Oliver Ferris the next day.
An examination of my pocket showed no hole that the keys could have fallen through. I prided myself on the fact that I never lost keys. So not only did I fear that Oliver's faith in me would be shaken, but my faith in myself was damaged too.
I'd been brought up a Christian, but until that time I couldn't recall God actually giving me anything I had asked for in prayer. But now I was really desperate, and I turned to God for help with a greater sense of need than I had ever felt before. Lord, I agonized.
I really need your help. Please show me where those keys are. Suddenly the thought popped into my mind.
Perhaps the keys dropped out of my pocket when I fell off the parallel bars. I'd better go and look there. So off I went across the playground.
But then two problems became apparent one, it was becoming quite dark and I had no torch, and two, there was a thick bed of sand under the bars, and the students in their play had been churning it up after I had been there during the lunch break. No matter, I kept on going anyway, and when I reached the bars, I bent down in the semidarkness and dug my hand into the sand. Imagine my amazement as within a second or two my fingers closed around the bundle of keys.
I hadn't searched around over a large area, but there were the keys, just a few centimeters below the surface. I can hardly describe the sense of relief that came over me, followed immediately by a surge of gratitude to God for hearing and answering my prayer in such a remarkable manner. Thank you, Lord, I whispered.
Thank you, thank you. Gratefully clutching the keys, I almost flew back over the playground to the school, where I soon had the building locked up, and within a few minutes I was on my way home, still marveling at the amazing answer to prayer that I had just experienced. For the first time in my life, I really understood that the key to peace of mind was in knowing that I was not alone and that God was with me, watching over me.
About 30 years ago, I was reminded of the experience I have just told you by another which happened at Pacific Adventist College, now Pacific Adventist University, just out of Port Mooresby, Papua New Guinea. When faculty members were away over the year end vacation, they sometimes asked students who were working on campus during the vacation to look after their homes for them. On this particular occasion, the chairman of the Theology Department had gone overseas for a few weeks and left a young Solomon Island education student named Wiki to look after his home.
Wiki was working on campus to earn tuition fees and was given the key of the house so he could go in as needed. One day, Wiki came to my office very agitated. You know, I'm looking after Pastor Tollheart's house while he's away, he began.
Well, today I lost his key in the lake. I've looked everywhere, but I can't find it. It was in my pocket while I was cleaning water lilies out of the lake over on the other side of the campus.
What can I do now? I can't get in to look after the house. And what will Pastor Tolhur say when he comes back and finds the key is gone? Poor Wiki appeared so dejected as he looked pleadingly at me. I should explain that we had a problem with a type of wild water lily which multiplied rapidly and covered the surface of our three campus lakes, threatening to choke out the beautiful large water lilies we had planted.
So every few months, campus workers would drag the masses of vegetation out of the water and cart it away. Wiki had been doing this work when the key must have fallen from his pocket into the water. As I looked at Wiki's unhappy face, my mind flashed back over the years to that day at the Hamilton School.
You surely seem to have a problem, I responded. But don't worry. I'm sure God can help you find the key if you ask him.
Let's kneel down right here and ask him to help you find that key. So we knelt down in my office and asked God's help for Wiki's problem. Now don't worry about it anymore, I told Wiki.
If God wants you to have that key again, you can be sure that you'll have it. Just leave it with him. In my busy program over the next day or two, the matter of Wiki's lost key was almost forgotten until a knock came on my door.
There stood Wiki with a big beaming smile on his face. I found it. He almost shouted in his excitement.
I was loading the heap of water lilies into the trailer when I saw something shining in the sun. When I looked closely, I saw that it was the key. And here it is.
He held up the key. Now, in case you think that was no big deal, I should tell you that that lake covers probably a hectare, and there were tons of waterly trash heaped around the edges of the lake. On top of that, the key was lost in the water, and the probability of its being caught up in the trash and dragged to shore was very small indeed.
But here was the key, dragged ashore and placed right where it would be seen in among the mass of waterly plants. Took about a needle in a haystack. Finding that would be a piece of cake compared with finding Wiki's key, humanly speaking.
That's great, I replied. So God did answer our prayer and you have your key again. Now, when God answers like that, we must remember to thank him.
So let's do that now. We knelt there in the office again and thanked God for showing Wiki where the key was. Wiki had learned an important lesson the key to peace of mind is trusting God.
You've been listening to our series You're Not Alone stories told by Allen Sonter that help us to know that God is always watching over us, wherever we are. If you have any comments or questions, send an email to
[email protected] or give us a call within Australia on zero two four nine seven, three three four five.
Six. May God bless you and remember you are not alone. You have been listening to a production of Three ABN Australia australia Radio.
